CA Extends Mainframe 2.0 Line with Application Testing Tools

CA has announced a new wrinkle in its Mainframe 2.0 initiative with new releases of its application testing tools that modernize mainframe ownership and ease the transfer of management tasks to a new generation of IT professionals.

In addition to leveraging CA’s Mainframe 2.0 technology, CA’s testing and debugging tools, CA InterTest Batch and CA InterTest for CICS, now feature a graphical user interface (GUI)  based on the Eclipse open development platform  to make it easier for mainframe  developers to execute core testing and debugging tasks, the company said.

According to CA officials these tasks historically have been time-consuming phases of the mainframe application development and deployment lifecycle.

CA also released a new version of CA SymDump for CICS, its advanced abend analysis solution, that uses the new Mainframe 2.0 implementation functions.

“Conventional approaches to testing and debugging mainframe applications are too slow and inefficient to meet the ‘needed it yesterday’ demands of the business,” said Aline Gerew, senior vice president of software engineering in CA’s Mainframe Business Unit, in a statement. “CA has directly addressed this issue by delivering a new set of solutions that empower our customers to meet these demands despite their current resource constraints.”

The new tools enable customers to streamline and simplify core quality assurance tasks.

"A key challenge for us is optimizing the productivity of our senior mainframe experts, while creating a working environment that helps our younger, less experienced development staff become proficient in mainframe computing," said Steve Ware, systems coordinator, Computing & Networking Services at the University of Florida, in a statement. "CA's newly enhanced testing tools are helping us do exactly that."

The new releases of CA InterTest and CA SymDump for CICS leverage such Mainframe 2.0 components as CA Mainframe Software Manager, which automates implementation, CA said.

Meanwhile, the new CA InterTest GUI helps developers efficiently reuse and repurpose existing mainframe application code to further improve productivity and support service oriented architecture (SOA) implementations. By plugging CA InterTest tools into their larger Eclipse-based integrated development environments, customers can more easily and seamlessly debug end-to-end composite applications that include mainframe, distributed, web, and mobile components. 

"Enterprise IT organizations are increasingly using mainframe-based applications as database or transactional back-ends for services that are ultimately delivered to the end-user's browser or browser equivalent," said Melinda Ballou, program director, Application Life-Cycle Management, IDC.

"Incorporating Eclipse interface standards into mainframe test solutions supports this trend by making it easier for development and testing teams to unify mainframe debugging tasks into their development platforms," Ballou said.